St. Landry democrat., 1887-04-09
FOREIGN GOSSIP.

--Rice-straw shoes are worn by the
iaborin@ people in the south Of China.
In an area Of 1916. 1913 square miles
in the Northwestern provinces OF India
the are said to be 44,O0O 900 Hindoos.
The average age Of European girls
when they marry, according to a Ger
man statistician, is twenty-slX years,
while that of the men is twenty eight
years.
The number of applications in En-
gland for patents last year amounted
to IL, 162-an increase over 1881 or 81,
and 1885 Of LOCI.
-Twenty-one priests live in the
Buddhist cloister of Hanie, Ihlbet,
where the altitude is sixteen thousand
feet above the level of the sea. 1t is
the highest inhabtable spot known.
The Duke of Orleans, born at
Twickenham on the 9th Of February,
1869, is now eighteen years old, the
age ut which French sovereigns dis
penSe with Il regency. He has, there
fore, attained his political majority.
The two copies Of the Bible used at
Queen Victoria coronation are still III
existence One is an heirloom in the
family of the late Dr.. Sumner, Bishop
Of Winchester. and the other is pre-
served in the Cathedral Of Norwich.
"A well ut Yakutsk, Siberia. has
been estimated to be frozen ut Il depth
of six hundred and twelve feet. AS eX
ternal cold could not freeze the earth
to such Il depth, even i'll Siberia, geoo-
mists have concluded that the we'll has
penetrated frozen formation of the
glacial period which has never thawed
out.
Miss Allcarl, ofLondon, entered a
convent twenty years ago and gave to
the siStcrhood her property which was
worth $4,000. Becoming dissatisfied
with the rigorous penances inflicted on
her during thirteen Years she left the
convent and brought suit for restitu-
ton of part of the money. The suit
has been decided against her
The Chinese cash is worth one
tenth of cent; the AsSamese sapek,
not more than Onc-tWcntieth Of Il cent.
A person in Tonquin who desire to
carry into the interior two dollars to
three dollars in native money finds
himself burlened with forty or fifty
pounds avoirdupois of metal that seems
no more valuable than so much lead.
Several English life insurance COM
panies have instituted section for alb
stainers only, with the result that the
bonus to the teetotalers has been con-
siderably larger than that to the gem
eral section. The Blue Ribbon Com
panv. however, has been established to
secure abstainers the whole of the pc
cuniary benefits accruing from habits
of temperance. This society has just
issued its third annual report. A divi-
dend of five per cent has been de-
clared. The directors report that the
number of policies discontinued,
through the insured ceasing to be total
abstainers, has been but trit1ing.
While the steamer Mongkeet was
taking rice at Bangkok Il coolie, after
a d: VS. work. took smoke of opium,
and then crawled under a beam in the
hold. Then he fell into Il stupor, was
not discovered, and the hold was filled
and the hatch closed. Ten days after,
at Hong Kong, he was found, and
when taken to the upper air at once re-
vived, and soon was apparently well.
He had been unconscious during the
ten days, and it is thought that the
moist heat from the rice had kept his
body warm, and the clammy air in the
hold brought him into comatose con-
dition, from which he awoke only when
fresh air was admitted.